"Our business institutions over the past centuries have focused on scaling push programs. Toyota and other pioneers of lean manufacturing “pull” systems have more recently begun to pursue limited pull approaches among a limited number of business partners. The next wave of innovation will focus on the development and deployment of pull platforms across a very large number of institutions. These pull platforms will not only transform business institutions, but other forms of institutions as well.

Traditional educational institutions represent classic examples of push programs. We project far in advance what students should learn and then develop curricula and programs to push that knowledge at the appropriate time. Just like the push programs in business, that model is now coming apart at the seams."

So what would a better system be for education? A pull system would be of limited use since the raw materials (children) are produced independently of future demand. Would a hybrid system work better, or is there some other paradigm altogether that needs to be used?